adventures of growing in the sunshine and soaking up the way of life
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Christmas in Bangkok!
So I’ve been back in Khon Kaen for a few days now! Coming back from two weeks of traveling was interesting, everything is exactly the same other than the house next to my apartment building has a few liter of puppies, making their total count of pups in between ten and fifteen. I’ve also been in Thailand for three months now! On day 90 (deadline day!!), Jess and my work permits still hadn’t come in, so we had to go to immigration to get a seven day extension. Luckly the school took us and paid for the fee, and the next day our permit arrived. We made another trip to immigration and now have our work permit/year visa! We gotta check into immigration every 90 days but we’re good to go! Also, I have signed up to participate in the Khon Kaen Marathon next weekend! Well, not the marathon, just the 5K.. my travels put me very behind any sort of training schedule I had before the break.
My travels! Here we go!
Christmas Eve margs and tacos!
I woke up bright and early Christmas Eve to catch the first bus out of Khon Kaen into Bangkok to meet a group of girls to celebrate Christmas for the weekend. Two of the girls had booked us spots in a cheap hostel.. we are on a Thai teacher budget! This is the very first hostel I had ever stayed in, and I have to say it wasn’t too bad. All six of us shared a single room which had 4 bunk beds making that 8 places to sleep. The bathroom was down the hall but very clean. The first night we had two random dudes filling up the two other spots but had the room to ourselves Christmas day. I arrived to Bangkok early afternoon on Christmas Eve and explored the city with my friend Olivia since she had the day off school too. Many of the other girls had to actually teach on Christmas Eve, so I’m lucky I had the day off. Olivia and I had been brain storming about places to go to dinner that night; the girls originally wanted to hit up a Christmas theme buffet but they were all SO expensive. We then had a genus idea of checking out a place that Jenna had found online and sent me as the best Mexican food in Bangkok according to CNNgo.com. Olivia, another girl Allie, and I went there for dinner that night since the other girls were still traveling in, and it was AMAZING! I’m not sure if I’m getting desperate or if it really was good, but cali shrimp tacos, chips and guacamole, and a strong margarita was all I wanted for Christmas and this place gave it to me. We found out that the owner graduated from Berkley with a degree in Chemistry and is from Oakland and has since moved to Bangkok and opened up this restaurant. It was so good that we took the rest of the girls there for Christmas dinner the next night! We finished up Christmas Eve by checking out the Bangkok night life and some good clubs. The next day, we celebrated Christmas with Starbucks, more Mexican food (the owner was there again and gave us all free tequila shots.. Merry Christmas to us!), and Christmas lights at the Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok. It was great to be with friends; definitely a unique Christmas but one to remember!
Famous Buddah Head
The next morning, Jenna and I started our week long adventure! Our first stop, Ayutthaya! Since Jenna lives near Bangkok, she knows A LOT more about the city such as where to go and how to get places, so I basically was following her lead. We hoped in a van that only cost 60 baht (2 dollars) to take us to Ayutthaya which was about an hour and a half away from Bangkok. In short terms, its a city with a whole bunch of amazing ruins. But for those more curious.. "The beautiful city of Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 by King U-Thong and was the capital of what was then known as Siam. Over the next 417 years it was ruled by 33 kings and repelled 23 Burmese invasions, before the Burmese finally succeeded in razing it to the ground. At its height, Ayutthaya was surrounded by a 12-kilometre-long wall which was five metres thick and six metres high and boasted 99 gates, brick and clay roads and canals to transport water into the city. By all reports Ayutthaya was stunning and rivalled most European capitals of the time and portions of this grandiose past can be re-experienced through its ruins scattered throughout the province, but for the relics and records from this period, the Burmese obliterated almost everything in 1767 -- even melting Buddha images down for their gold." Jenna and I bought an all day pass for admission into a whole bunch of different ruin spots and rented bikes and biked around the city, which brought us back to our college days at UCSB! It was a very warm day but we saw some amazing sites. We talked a restaurant owner into letting us rent bikes again later that night for an hour so we could see the ruins illuminated at night. It was beautiful and interesting to think about how these amazing ruins must have looked before the Burmese came in and destroyed much of it. After our bike ride, we called it a night so we could wake up early the next morning!
Next up is the monkey city, sunflower fields, and island paradise!
The next morning, Jenna and I started our week long adventure! Our first stop, Ayutthaya! Since Jenna lives near Bangkok, she knows A LOT more about the city such as where to go and how to get places, so I basically was following her lead. We hoped in a van that only cost 60 baht (2 dollars) to take us to Ayutthaya which was about an hour and a half away from Bangkok. In short terms, its a city with a whole bunch of amazing ruins. But for those more curious.. "The beautiful city of Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 by King U-Thong and was the capital of what was then known as Siam. Over the next 417 years it was ruled by 33 kings and repelled 23 Burmese invasions, before the Burmese finally succeeded in razing it to the ground. At its height, Ayutthaya was surrounded by a 12-kilometre-long wall which was five metres thick and six metres high and boasted 99 gates, brick and clay roads and canals to transport water into the city. By all reports Ayutthaya was stunning and rivalled most European capitals of the time and portions of this grandiose past can be re-experienced through its ruins scattered throughout the province, but for the relics and records from this period, the Burmese obliterated almost everything in 1767 -- even melting Buddha images down for their gold." Jenna and I bought an all day pass for admission into a whole bunch of different ruin spots and rented bikes and biked around the city, which brought us back to our college days at UCSB! It was a very warm day but we saw some amazing sites. We talked a restaurant owner into letting us rent bikes again later that night for an hour so we could see the ruins illuminated at night. It was beautiful and interesting to think about how these amazing ruins must have looked before the Burmese came in and destroyed much of it. After our bike ride, we called it a night so we could wake up early the next morning! 
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